2023 Screen Time
Recommending things from way back last year
I missed the deadline to reflect on 2023 (December 31st, 2023 if my inbox is to be believed). But nevertheless I persist and will remind you that most of your coworkers will wish you a Happy New Year for at least two more weeks. I personally think the cutoff is when you’re out of the decorative napkins you bought for your NYE gathering.
I use my notes app the same way everybody does, by keeping a detailed list of everything I watch each year to allow for easier reflection at this time. I wondered what the best use of my voice was in recommending things I liked from the part year and decided against using up more precious internet space to say “go watch Barbie” or “The Last of Us was top tier television”.1
Television
Shrinking (AppleTV+)
When this show concluded in April, I immediately gave it the “cozy” stamp of approval, with it’s lush suburban southern California locales (mostly shot in Pasadena, an affluent city near Los Angeles where many other “shot on location in California” houses exist like The Holiday and Father of the Bride) and 30-ish minute episodes— rare in these streaming days and a common element among all of my recommendations here!
Shrinking takes a dark premise (the catalyst for the series is the main character’s wife’s recent passing) and turns it into a show about friendship and family and happiness while not ignoring the grief of the subject matter. There is one story point that didn’t work for me and please reach out if you watch it so we can discuss further thanks!
This show has a bonkers cast led by Jason Segel and Harrison Ford, with supporting players I would truly watch in anything (Jessica Williams from the now defunct comedy podcast 2 Dope Queens and Michael Urie in TV’s Ugly Betty). We’ve got comedy, we’ve got sadness, we’ve got a theme song from Bed Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service!
The Horror of Dolores Roach (Prime Video)
So many shows arrive with no fanfare on the depths of streaming services not named Netflix and even I don’t get around to 90% of them so when I find an under-promoted gem that captured me for a brief 8-episodes, yowza!
After being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for a past crime, and needing to find a stable job, our title character starts on a precarious course of events that leads her to… murder and the subsequent monetization of cannibalism! Maybe not for the Squamish among us if I lost you and cannibalism, but trust this is mostly a comedy! And culture needed to strike at least once more on the subject while the iron is hot (hi Yellowjackets)!
Based on a podcast of the same name (and a one-woman play before that, I am just learning by googling as we speak), this limited series gives television icon and Dancing with the Stars semi-finalist Justina Machado so much to chew on (LOL PUN!) in a not-true crime story that had me enthralled.
Scavengers Reign (Max)
For making a career so far in animated television, I have had a long-standing aversion to a lot of adult animation. Where there are dozens of kids and YA shows that stretch the limits of what kids shows can be, adult animation has almost always focused on raunchy comedy that did nothing for me (such as Family Guy, Big Mouth, etc.).
Scavengers Reign begins with such little information that it doesn’t even give the viewer enough to get antsy waiting for questions to be answered (like many big sci-fi shows of the time). The main characters are stranded on an alien planet with the simple goal of getting back home. In their own stranded factions, they fight their way back to their broken ship battling the dangerous elements and their own mental deterioration.
The show does the most excellent job of showing not telling, letting minimal dialogue work alongside brilliant environment and character design, as we wonder alongside the characters about what threats each new creature poses. If you too have never thought animation can be for adults, start here.
Movies
I missed this in theaters when it arrived in early November 2023, so I benefitted from watching it at home under a blanket with a lit Christmas tree nearby. This is a Christmas movie but it’s also just a winter movie, so you’re allowed to watch this for a few more months, and after that I’ll find you another excuse if you don’t get around to it until June.
A mentor/mentee/generational gap story, a friendship story, a coming-of-age story that only spans about two weeks, The Holdovers projects such a warmth perfectly contrasted with its interspersed landscapes of a snowy New England college town.
I would like this to win at least one (1) Academy Award, preferably for a screenplay or for Paul Giamatti, playing a character whom I would be absolutely terrified to have as a college professor, despite his warmness by the movie’s end. And shout out to Dominic Sessa, a new actor who had the task of being a main character with whom we’d empathize while also being a privileged teenage worm so we can see the professor’s side as he reprimands him.
It’s perfectly okay to say “okay so The Parent Trap” when watching the trailer for Dicks. And as one of my favorite movies (the 1998 version of course), I took no further convincing. Adapted from a stage show by the movie’s writers and stars Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, Dicks takes the “identical twins meet each other” plot and that’s about time when we deviate from The Parent Trap. Acknowledging from the jump that these adult gay actors do not remotely resemble each other but claim to be identical, Alpha Dog straight men, the tone of the movie is instantly clear.
Dicks has an admittedly light story (see the note about the tone, above), but I signed up for about 90 minutes of giggles and there is no better feeling leaving a movie than lightheadedness from laughs. In a time when musicals aren’t allowed to be musicals, it’s refreshing to have this movie boast exactly what you’re in for from the jump.
As a Former Summer Camp Employee™, any story at a camp is for me. Shot in the familiar Mockumentary style (overdone in 2012 but after a pause, works well for comedic effect), a group of seasoned employees are left floundering when a family member with no broadway knowledge inherits managerial duties of the theater camp. Struggling camp, simple goal of raising money, hilarity ensues.
Theater Camp has hundreds of jokes from delusional counselors who value nothing more in this world than providing a safe space for passionate children who just want to sing Cats.
2023 saw a spike in stellar comedies that in the recent past would be dumped on Hulu and forgotten about (yes Theater Camp is now available on Hulu) but we were so fed this summer with movies like this, No Hard Feelings, Joy Ride, Bottoms and yes, Barbie. Highly rec all of these.
2023 was a good movie year, and like a delusional business who has to appease Wall Street, the only metric that matters is GROWTH! I saw 84 movies in 20232, according to my Letterboxd diary3, so let’s match or beat it in 2024!
Wait absolutely go watch these if you missed them. And also The Bear.
Still unclear how to count this number as I continue to see 2023 releases in January of 2024. There is no way to see all of the buzzy end-of-year movies before the calendar turns!
I started using Letterboxd this year as a means to log movie reviews and data, and less as a new social platform to gain followers (follow me if you want?). But I’ve greatly enjoyed the data it provides! And of course I just repost my reviews to instagram anyway.
Shrinking was 11/10! Obsessed.